Ok so I went to https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2
to do a test on the Puppy 431 using firefox, after turning the puppy firewall on, (automatic without prompts). Here are the results.

Solicited TCP Packets: PASSED — No TCP packets were received from your system as a direct result of our attempts to elicit some response from any of the ports listed below — they are all either fully stealthed or blocked by your ISP. However . . .

Unsolicited Packets: PASSED — No Internet packets of any sort were received from your system as a side-effect of our attempts to elicit some response from any of the ports listed above. Some questionable personal security systems expose their users by attempting to "counter-probe the prober", thus revealing themselves. But your system remained wisely silent. (Except for the fact that not all of its ports are completely stealthed as shown below.)

Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since "Ping" is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation.

So it failed on pinging. Does this matter? Firefox is running under wine.
BTW the typeface looks really crappy! Like a sort of draught version...

Could it be the case that some ISP use pinging to determine
if I am still active using internet and if one do what is suggested
then one loose internet each 20 minutes or so? No big deal
if one get it back withing a minute but what if it takes hours
in some places where there is competition to get internet?

Being a true pessimist. Can my ISP have some rule that makes
it shut me down totally if I do this too often. Them need to ping
to be economically okay. They whole set up is that they can ping?
To keep their way of doing it is based on pinging and me making that
impossible is seen as obstruction or something._________________I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

Nooby, I haven't had that losing connection problem with 431, but maybe now the pinging has been stopped it might..I think games sometimes need it. That's all I know, others will undoubtedly know more.

Telstra Australia uses what is known as a HEARTBEAT to check your connectivity.
If you block the heartbeat with your firewall you get disconnected.

AFAIK Telstra is the only ISP in the world to use the heartbeat.

How can one know if that is happening by looking at netstat or something?

I know I lost connection about each 15 to 45 minutes. I don't remember.
Maybe each 30 minutes or shorter interval it where very annoying.
But maybe a year ago or more so have no recall of details_________________I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

Your ISP probably *pings you* to see if you are still using your temporary connection. If not, then they cut you off and let someone else use that IP address -if they have 10,000 customers they probably serve them with half that number of addresses since not everyone is connected at once.

You can avoid being shut off this way by *pinging them* every 5 minutes(or one minute). You pinging your ISP doesn't tell them anything they don't already know -the IP address you are currently using. Disabling the *answering of pings which you receive* is a way to avoid being seen by malicious traffic. If you ping your ISP often enough, they won't be pinging you to see if you are still around.

Thanks sounds logical. Wish I knew their view on us pinging them?
I don't even know if Lupu 528-004 maybe already do that or not
or how to tell it to ping. How does one know how to do such things?_________________I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though